Water Rat
Park Street, South Melbourne
Melbourne, Victoria
03 9686 1980

Every veteran crime reporter in Melbourne knows the location of the Water Rat even if they haven’t kept up with its myriad of name changes.

Just mention that it used to be the Druids Hotel and they’ll know it’s on the corner of Park and Moray Streets in South Melbourne because back then it was a hangout for the Painters and Dockers and other associated thugs.

It was where, in 1973, union secretary Pat Shannon was gunned down. Billy ‘The Texan’ Longley, a big man in the corrupt P & D’s union, was found guilty of the murder and sent away for a long stretch even though he didn’t actually pull the trigger. All part of that establishment’s ‘rich tapestry’.

It’s one of the oldest hotels in Melbourne. It started out in 1858 as the Freemasons Hotel and became the Druids in 1874. And it stayed a rundown, wharfies’ pub into the early 1980s.  Then a group of lawyers bought it and named it the Splash Club  --supposedly after their Friday night drinkathons  -- but by  1985 it was incongruously called The Enzeder. Presumably to attract displaced Kiwis but guaranteed to deter Australians.

Now it’s the Water Rat and with all the changes have come improvements to the bars, the restaurant, the menu, the new roof deck.
It is now a diverse and popular venue. I’ll anticipate some argument and say: the best in South Melbourne, Middle Park or Albert Park.

They’ve spent a lot on it and, with the comfy lounge chairs and opulent leather chesterfields, they wisely jumped the gun and banned indoor smoking a year before it became law.

But it is in the restaurant that the most remarkable changes have occurred. We’ve had several great meals there lately. Mrs Nosebag raved about their fish and claimed a bowl of Italian-style roasted vegetables was ‘sublime’. And that’s from a vegequarian whose middle name should be Broccolini.

Even though the restaurant is separated from the bar area I think my mind was still in ‘pub mode’ and I went for the Cumberland Sausage and mash.

When I saw the fish and chicken dishes coming out I thought I’d made a mistake until THE sausage arrived. There was only one but it was an endless swirl curled up under a doona of creamy mashed potato with bacon bits.

It was so long, and I couldn’t finish it, it reminded me of that old political joke about Whitlam: How do you know Gough’s not circumcised? Because there’s no end to the prick. (The name in the joke later changed to Howard).

With all their mains and sides the presentation is clever and the tastes are clean.

The new-look Water Rat is serving two-course business lunches for $25 with a glass of Barossa wine. That’s Mon-Thurs. I suspect Friday has become a popular end-of-week marathon lunch blow out – like at the Golden Gate, a few blocks away, in the old days. Pre fringe benefits tax. Our Friday lunches at the Gate would go from 1 till 2. That was 1p.m. until 2a.m.

And on Sundays there’s live jazz which, on the days we’ve been there has attracted young groups –including the kids.

This is one buoyant ship the rats are not swimming away from.